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Darkness / Byron
Darkness is a poem written by Lord Byron in July 1816. Background 1816 was known as the Year Without a Summer because Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies the previous year, casting enough ash in to the atmosphere to block out the sun and cause abnormal weather across much of northeast America and northern Europe. This pall of darkness inspired Byron to write his poem. Literary critics were initially content to classify it as a "last man" poem, telling the apocalyptic story of the last man on earth. More recent critics have focused on the poem's historical context, as well as the anti-biblical nature of the poem, despite its many references to the Bible. The poem was written only months after the end of Byron's marriage to Anne Isabella Milbanke. Historical context eruption. Ash clouds traveled much farther.]] Byron's poem was written during the Romantic period. During this period, several events occurred which resembled (to some) the biblical signs of the apocalypse. Many authors at the time saw themselves as prophets with a duty to warn others about their impending doom.Introduction, 7 However, at the same time period, many were questioning their faith in a loving God, due to recent fossil discoveries revealing records of the deaths of entire species buried in the earth.Gordon 614 1816, the year in which the poem was written, was called "the year without summer", as strange weather and an inexplicable darkness caused record-cold temperatures across Europe, especially in Geneva,Paley, 2 where Byron claimed to have received his inspiration for the poem, saying he "wrote it... at Geneva, when there was a celebrated dark day, on which the fowls went to roost at noon, and the candles were lighted as at midnight".Paley, 3 The darkness was (unknown to those of the time) caused by the volcanic ash spewing from the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia (Vail 184). The search for a cause of the strange changes in the light of day only grew as scientists discovered sunspots on the sun so large that they could be seen with the naked eye.Vail, 184 Newspapers such as the London Chronicle reported on the panic: A scientist in Italy even predicted that the sun would go out on July 18,Vail 183 shortly before Byron's writing of "Darkness". His "prophecy" caused riots, suicides, and religious fervor all over Europe.Vail 186 For example: This prediction, and the strange behavior of nature at this time, stood in direct contrast with many of the feelings of the age. William Wordsworth, for example, a famous poet of the time, often expresses in his writing a belief in the connection of God and nature for which much of the Romantic Era's poetry is typical. His "Tintern Abbey", for example, says "Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her".ll. 122-123 His poetry also carries the idea that nature is a kind thing, living in peaceful co-existence with man. He says in the same poem, referring to nature, that "all which we behold / is full of blessings."qtd. in Schroeder 116 Even the more frightening Gothic poems of Coleridge, another famous poet of the time, argue for a kind treatment of nature that is only cruel if treated cruelly, as in "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", unlike Byron's sun, which goes out with no human mistreatment mentioned at all.Schroeder, 116 Criticism and analysis In the past, critics were happy to classify Darkness as a “Last Man” poem, following a general theme of end of the world scenes from the view of the last man on earth. However, recent scholarship has pointed out the poem's lack of any single “Last Man” character.Schroeder 117 Biblical imagery Byron also uses the hellish biblical language of the apocalypse to carry the real possibility of these events to his readers. The whole poem can be seen as a reference to Matthew 24:29: “the sun shall be darkened.” In line 32 it describes men “gnashing their teeth” at the sky, a clear biblical parallel of hell.see Matt 24:51 Vipers twine “themselves among the multitude, / Hissing."ll. 35-37 Two men left alive of “an enormous city” gather “holy things” around an altar, “for an unholy usage”—to burn them for light. Seeing themselves in the light of the fire, they die at the horror of seeing each other “unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend."ll. 55-69 In this future, all men are made to look like fiends, emaciated, dying with “their bones as tombless as their flesh."ll. 45 They also act like fiends, as Byron says: “no love was left,”ll. 41 matching the biblical prophecy that at the end of the world, “the love of many shall wax cold."see Matt 24:12 In doing this, Byron is merely magnifying the events already occurring at the time. The riots, the suicides, the fear associated with the strange turn in the weather and the predicted destruction of the sun, had besieged not only people's hope for a long life, but their beliefs about God's creation and about themselves as well. By bringing out this diabolical imagery, Byron is communicating that fear: that God is not in nature or in us; that he is not at all; that “Darkness nature had no need / of aid from them—She was the universe.”ll. 81-82 Byron's pessimistic views continue, as he mixes Biblical language with the apparent realities of science at the time. As Paley points out, it is not so much significant that Byron uses Biblical passages as that he deviates from them to make a point.pg. 6 For example, the thousand-year peace mentioned in the book of Revelation as coming after all the horror of the apocalypse does not exist in Byron's “Darkness.” Instead, “War, which for a moment was no more, / Did glut himself again.”ll. 38-39 In other words, swords are only beaten temporarily into plowshares, only to become swords of war once again. Also, the fact that the vipers are “stingless”ll. 37 parallels the Biblical image of the peace to follow destruction: “And the sucking child shall play in the whole of the asp.”Paley 6 In the poem, though, the snake is rendered harmless, but the humans take advantage of this and the vipers are “slain for food.” Paley continues, saying “associations of millennial imagery are consistently invoked in order to be bitterly frustrated."Paley, 6 It is also a book written by John Saul. See also *Other poems by Byron References *Gordon, George. “Darkness.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. D. New York, London: Norton, 2006. 614-6. *“Introduction.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. D. New York, London: Norton, 2006. 1-22. *Paley, Morton D. "Envisioning Lastness: Byron's 'Darkness,' Campbell's 'the Last Man,' and the Critical Aftermath." Romanticism: The Journal of Romantic Culture and Criticism 1 (1995): 1-14. *Schroeder, Ronald A. "Byron's 'Darkness' and the Romantic Dis-Spiriting of Nature." Approaches to Teaching Byron's Poetry. Ed. Frederick W. Shilstone. New York: Mod. Lang. Assn. of Amer, 1991. 113-119. *Vail, Jeffrey. "'the Bright Sun was Extinguis'd': The Bologna Prophecy and Byron's 'Darkness'." Wordsworth Circle 28: 183-92. *Wordsworth, William. “Lines: Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey. . .” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. D. New York, London: Norton, 2006. 258-62. *---.“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. D. New York, London: Norton, 2006. 305-6. Notes External links ;Text *"Darkness" in English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald, Harvard Classics ;About *"Darkness" in Lord Byron's Poems Study Guide Category:Text of poem Category:Poetry by Lord Byron Category:1816 poems Category:Dying Earth subgenre Category:19th-century poems Category:English poems